Its been a while since I posted, Christmas has come and gone and with it, for me, a radical re-think.

As part of the Christmas celebrations, family descends on Norfolk and bedrooms are cleared for occupation. This means that whatever is cleared out has to go somewhere and, unfortunately for me, that means my work room. So whilst work came to an enforced halt, I had plenty of thinking time, usually a dangerous thing for me but on this occasion it may well have done me a favour in a roundabout way.

It had been my intention to model two different periods in railway history, the late '50s, early '60s and the mid to late 70s. I have to confess to liking BR blue. The problem with this, for a one man band such as myself, with grand layout intentions, is that I needed to build two lots of stock as there is little or no overlap between the periods. You might get away with the odd wagon carrying pre-TOPS lettering but not much else. So I set to thinking about how much of a transition I would have to make to model the period from 1960-1965 and hence have both steam and diesel locos and, most importantly, just one lot of stock. The answer is that it isn't that big a leap, as long as you don't mind re-painting some of the stock already built. I do and I don't. It has to be quicker and more efficient use of my time to build just one lot of stock even allowing for the fact that I will have to re-visit some of it with the airbrush.

I have the beginnings of one rake of coal wagons and I decide to start my re-visiting here. I've attached a few pictures of the results below as well as the odd van or two that were waiting to be painted and lettered. Still to do is my completed sand train rake of 15 or so wagons. Everyone of which needs a repaint. Never mind, eh. The coal wagon rake just mentioned, currently also around 15 or so, has been completed so I am making some progress.

This was one of the coal wagons, rather poorly weathered, that was to have been used in the later period coal train, hence the heavy weathering.

This is the same wagon now after a complete body repaint and new lettering. I took the opportunity to replace the cast brake lever and lever guard with etched items while I was about it. Weathering is mainly MIG powder bushed on and then lifted off with a flat brush damped with turpentine.

My one and only, so far, 24 1/2 ton mineral, which was originally destined for the later period rake and has had pretty much the same thing done to it as the previous wagon.

Same techniques, just took off a little less weathering powder.

A bit more work here, with lots of scratches and rust showing through, topped off with the same dirtying up techniques.

Van time. A fairly standard planked van, given the same dirt wash treatment as the minerals.

A standard ply van, again given the same treatment as the previous one.

A planked van with a ply door, finish as above.

The start of a Plate wagon rake. This is a BR built one with LNER AVB brake gear. No weathering.

Finally, a pair of Iron Ore hoppers in sand traffic from my sand train rake. As fine an example as I could find of just how much re-painting will have to be done to some of these wagons. Fortunately, these are rather extreme examples of the breed and I will get away with a spot of re-lettering on some of them.

Thanks for your kind words, Colin. Its a shame it all has to come off now, but that's life. I was quite pleased with the "old rust" effect on these wagons and a few others. If memory serves me, it was an enamel mix of SR Goods Brown, Black and Metalcote Gunmetal. I'm afraid I can't remember the proportions now but experimenting will get you there. I do remember that you don't need very much of the latter two colours at all and where I didn't want a sheen to it, I have left out the Gunmetal in the past.

Thanks for the tip (no pun intended), Tim. Very useful and such a simple solution.

I can see that the first pictured wagon is a little over-weathered and is much improved by your re-paint, but the hoppers look rather interesting in that finish. Perhaps the real things never got to that state of neglect. I can see that you are going for a consistent look to your wagons. The vacuum pipes on the vans are interesting. How will they connect to adjacent vehicles? (There are some very small round magnets available from places like Magnet Expert, but I can't see if there are magnets on the ends of your pipes.)

The body work on the wagons looks very effective.It may be the camera & light, but thought the solebars & underframes could do with some colour tone variation to match the poor state depicted of the body work colours. Oily gunk / stains, a wash of various dirty colours where the muck is shielded or trapped from the rain. One van appears to have a blue tone to its grey black. Which some hobby paint greys have. I don't see that on the real thing - more the black with white mix. Always find a lighter tone to the upper solebar edge, axlebox face, and any footboard & steps etc helps the model have a likeness to the real thing.

As an aside- I thought that leaf springs were soaked. or coated in oil to help them flex. But do not ( naturaly ?)see that in this period.

In regard to couplings, I often see model's links with big gaps. Whereas I understand going back to the earliest days, they were welded in some form to counter breakages / accidents - solder will flow into such gaps easily.

Sadly Colin, some prototype wagons got into a far worse state than the ones I've done. Minerals and hoppers seemed to be completely neglected by the mid 70's, presumably with the introduction of modern air braked replacements. The vacuum pipes you can see are the ones I mentioned in my wagon article in SN 185. They are fitted to those wagons which will find themselves in fixed rakes and are glued into a hole in the headstock at one end of the wagon. A hole is drilled in the opposite end of each wagon and the pipe on the adjacent wagon is pushed into this hole, giving the impression of connected vacuum or air pipes. All this does, of course, mean that the wagons are "handed". I do have some of the magnets you mentioned and these will be fitted to those wagons which will not be in fixed rakes. I haven't got around to doing any of these yet but I suppose I should give it a go fairly soon. Jim Smith-Wright outlined the method in MRJ 164.

Steve, I have checked out the vans that you mentioned as having a blueish tint to the underframe and I think the problem most likely lies in the camera or lighting. I did, after all, only take the pictures with my mobile! I had not heard of springs being oiled before but I would imagine nothing would attract muck and gunge quicker and photographic evidence would seem to suggest this. Thanks for your interesting comments concerning underframe tones. I have weathered a couple of underframes along the lines you suggest but they don't really show up that well in the photos.

I often give wagon underframes a quick spary with track colour after other weathering is done. A bit crude, especially when compared to what John has done with the body work but it does tone things down and it does not really matter if a bit gets on the bodies as well. I have also dry brushed on some black to represent oil/grease stains.

Just another variation on the weathering of wagon under frames, which applies to unpainted ones really: On my more recent wagon builds the chassis were given a full coat of track colour, followed by a mist of black which didn't go into the corners, nooks and crannies, leaving the highlights black-ish.

I did also experiment with given the chassis a final very fine mist coat of olive green, applied with the paint feed screw on the airbrush almost shut. This sounds bizzare, but on older wagons and especially departmental ones which hung around in sidings most of the time, there was often some algal growth on solebars etc.. The effect was quite realistic, but one shouldn't get carried away!

Calamity! I have mis-led and must be punished. In an earlier posting, 2nd April, I think, I said that the rust mix used on the Iron Ore hoppers was made up of SR Goods Brown, Black and Metalcote Gunmetal. Today, whilst looking for something completely un-related, I found my notes on the mix and I'm afraid my memory has done me again. As the more astute amongst you will have realised, there is no black involved. This should, of course, be bauxite. I trust this makes things right between us.

As a penance, and as I said I hadn't yet tried it, I've just fitted some "magnetic" hanging vacuum pipes to a couple of wagons to see how they go. I secured them with 24 hour epoxy so, apart from painting them up, I haven't yet "connected" them. I'm sure they'll work but the proof of the pudding will come tomorrow. It appears that I will have to make up some nickel silver couplings links as well! I will have them with me (the wagons, not the coupling links!) on the help desk at Scalefour North so, if you want to have a look please feel free to peruse at your leisure. Still working on how to use both types of pipe, "magnetic" and fixed rake, as upright pipes. I'm always open to ideas.

See you at Wakefield where, no doubt, some of that money will cease resting in my account. (one for the Ted fans)

This is a Parkside planked Shock Van, with a Masokits sub-frame chassis, MJT buffers and Rumney Models shock absorbing gear. The springs and axleboxes are Wizard, if memory serves. Its been a while in the making, mainly because I originally wanted to put some sprung Lanarkshire Models buffers on it, (which aren't available as yet) but that nice Justin chap brought out his shock absorbing gear so I fitted some unsprung MJTs just to get it finished.

An old Bachmann van (or it may even be Airfix, I can't recall) sitting on a Rumney RCH chassis with LMS buffers, Wizard springs and axleboxes and thats about it.

This one is a very old Airfix body on another Rumney RCH chassis with pretty much the same add-ons as the others, the container being a Parkside FM. The container shackles are a mix of Ambis and scratchbuilt parts and yes, I have noticed that the roof is lifting at the end of the container and that the shackles need a touch up to hide the bright bits that are showing through! A job for this evening. I plan a mixed rake of containers and Insulated vans of which this is the first. Well, you've got to start somewhere.

My current project is a Vanwide, made up from my now usual mix of Parkside body, Rumney chassis (this time a Derby clasp brake version), Lanarkshire buffers and Wizard springs and axleboxes. Whilst I have done some of the basic assembly, I haven't yet got into the nitty gritty of the chassis and so I thought it might be useful to anyone considering having a go at one to see what's involved.

Here we have the basis chassis components. The basic chassis itself, beneath which is the central brake gear "spine", then in no particular order, the spring/bearing carriers, brake yokes and brake shoes. There's nothing in the preparation and construction of what you see that's beyond the wit. You will need to pin some overlays to the brake "spine", which I did by drilling into a block of wood, using the spine as a template and then pushing wire pins through the etchings and into the wood. This keeps everything nicely aligned and makes soldering that much easier.

Here is that "spine with the brake yokes soldered on. When the yokes are folded up a slot is formed into which the spine is inserted in the appropriate places and then soldered. The instructions and photographs therein make it clear where they go. Its an ingenious little idea that makes soldering such fiddly bits very easy.

Now to the assembly of the brake gear. The first step is to solder the clasp brake shoes along one side of the wagon, as shown above. There are little slots in the axleguard assemblies into which each shoe goes. The outer ones are for P4. A 1mm wire pin can be used to assist alignment, being placed into the foot of each shoe and through a corresponding hole in the main chassis base. I found that the slot provided sufficient alignment, making life a lot easier.

The next stage involves putting the "spine" into the brake shoes and into the clasp brake hangers at either end, between the axleguards. Make constant reference to the diagram and photographs in the instructions to ensure that you get the correct orientation of the spine to the chassis. There should be no need to ask why I emphasise this! I've been there with the BR Clasp Brake chassis and the real problem is that you invariably find out when its too late, unless you're very lucky! The instructions tell you to solder the spine to the brake shoes and central hangers now but I held off for reasons which I shall explain shortly.

Lastly, the brake shoes go in on the opposite side and the spine is inserted into them. Now we come to the reason for not soldering up the first side. As the spine is free to move between the brake shoes on either side, it can be centred between them and then soldered, making for a nice neat job. I don't think this makes the assembly job any more difficult than if you follow the instructions. Perhaps I should really say that the assembly process isn't difficult at all and is quite straightforward. I placed a short length of 0.8mm wire through the vee hangers and the centre of the spine in order to prevent damage during cleaning.

So that's it so far, more to follow as I progress. Next up however, is one of my bete noir. The brake lever guards. A job I despise but they must be done. If anyone has any questions on what I've done thus far then please fire away and I'll do my best to answer them.

Time to attack the bete noir then. I veered away from Justin's excellent instructions in an effort to avoid the struggle I usually have with these brake lever guards.

Here we have the three basic component parts involved. The instructions tell you to pin the u-shaped bracket to the top of the lever guard, solder that to the wagon solebar and then add the bracket that attaches the bottom of the lever guard to the w-iron.

Here's what I did. I soldered the wire pins into the lever guard at both the top and bottom, incorporating the w-iron securing bracket into the bottom hole whilst doing so.

Here's the finished result. I trimmed the bottom pin back at both the front and rear but only trimmed the front of the top one back for now.

The next job is to solder the u-shaped bracket to the solebars. There are small slots in the solebar overlays to help you locate them in the right place.

The lever guard is now placed in the hole in the solebar bracket using the wire pin, which I left in the rear of the lever guard etch, and the bottom securing bracket bent to shape. What you see in the photo is the lever guard simply resting in place. I haven't yet soldered it. I mention this to show that by using this construction method, when the time comes to secure the guard to the solebar, it effectively supports itself and makes the job a lot less fiddly. I hope that's clear because I'm flagging now that its almost beddy-byes time.

The finished job, soldered in place. For my part, I have always found these lever guards to be the most fiddly part of the whole chassis kit and, if I'm honest, I've made a right pig's ear of them in the past. I am quite pleased with how they've turned out using this method and I shall go this way in future. Having said that, Justin's instructions are superb and contain lots of useful construction tips and I only stray from them when I can't manage to do the job in the conventional manner. Or, to put it another way, when I make a complete hash of it!

Finally, the bits and bobs for the next stage. As you can see, I've already cut the slots in the back of the axleboxes to allow the bearings to move up and down. I also cut those tabs off the top of the spring castings as they can't be fitted if you leave them in place. These will be glued on using 24 hour epoxy as I like a nice strong joint. When I return, these will be fitted and I shall carry on with the few remaining jobs as I charge headlong towards completion. Once again, if you have any questions, don't be shy.

It looks like the type of chassis I will eventually need eleven of. How long does it take to build one? The wagons in your post of the 24th Nov. look very nice indeed. The coupled vacuum piped are especially good in effect. Do you envisage keeping your wagons in fixed rakes with end wagons having just the one pipe on the outer end?

First things first, I have spent around eight hours on it so far and wouldn't imagine needing more than a couple more to finish it off. Bear in mind though, that this is the first one of these Derby chassis that I've attempted and, whilst there are many similarities between it and the other Rumney chassis I've made up, I have spent a good while going through the instructions to make sure I get things right. If you batch build a few, or even build a few successively, you will get quicker as you become more familiar. This working time also includes the work done in putting Exactoscale wheels together and preparing the castings and couplings. They are well worth the effort so give them a go. I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

The vacuum pipes are made up from 1mm. elastic thread bought from a local haberdashery shop. (Yes, we still have such delights in Norfolk). Its funny stuff and looks very plastic-like but it doesn't stretch too much (not that it needs to) and takes paint well enough. I'm not sure what the diameter of a vacuum pipe is but, whilst 1mm. is probably a little on the thick side, I doubt if it would be possible to get any closer to scale. It looks OK from normal viewing distances. I've had a few wagons so fitted on the Society stand at a number of shows and very few have mentioned them. Not sure what that says about normal viewing distances! As the Vanwide will have one of these pipes fitted, I'll give a full description of it, with a few photos, when I get that far. Its usually one of the last jobs but you have to do a bit of preparatory work so I'll cover that when I work on it next time. You are right in your assumptions regarding these wagons being in fixed rakes. My "loose" wagons will have the magnetic type of vacuum pipe, described by Jim Smith-Wright. I have done a couple of these but I'm not yet happy that I've got the pipe length right. Nothing a bit of experimentation won't put right.

In my last posting I promised to cover what I do in order to both fit and make up the vacuum pipes that I use on wagons going into fixed rakes. There's nothing taxing involved but it does mean that your wagons become "handed" as the pipe is only fitted to one end of each wagon. So how does one achieve this little subterfuge?

The first thing to do is to drill a 1mm. hole in the headstock at the appropriate point. You will need to do this at both ends of the wagon.

The next job involves cutting two pieces of 60thou plasticard 4mm x 3mm. These should be fitted into the channels at the rear of each headstock. A little filing should see them fit nicely into the channels. As you can see, these pieces of plasticard stand a little proud of the rear of the headstock. This isn't a problem unless you're building a shock absorbing chassis, in which case, you will also need to file these pieces flush with the rear of the headstock. It might well be that these pieces will foul the additional underframe channeling that is fitted to these type of chassis. In which case, you will have to adapt the method as necessary. I can't help further on this as I've not built one of these yet.

The last thing to do on the headstock is to drill a 1mm. hole through the hole in the headstock and all the way through the plastic. This hole should be angled upwards and away from the coupling plate. I hope that the two pictures explain this better than my words. I'm also hoping that the drill makes this a little clearer. Once drilled out, you will need to take a broach and carefully open these holes out just enough to ensure that the "pipe" can move freely in the hole. As the pipe will be glued into the appropriate hole at one end of the wagon, this won't cause any problems. The idea is that it will make it easier to insert the other end of the pipe into the hole in the headstock of the adjacent wagon. Something I've learnt the hard way from experience!

Now on to the pipe itself. Nothing could be simpler. Take a 25mm length of the 1mm. diameter elastic thread and cut a short length of masking tape, approximately 15mm. x 1mm. wide. These dimensions are just a guide. As long as you're in the ball park, you'll be fine. The tricky bit comes when rolling the masking tape around the thread. Lay the thread on top of the sticky side of the tape at one end and roll the thread along the tape until you reach the end. Lay the thread onto the tape so that it is half way along its length, thus getting the "pipe connection" in the right place when connected up. The end result is shown above. The paint and varnish will help seal the end of the masking tape and prevent it from peeling away at the end. Once painted, I place it in a safe place and fit it as the last job on the wagon.

Now back to the chassis construction.

As you can see, since last time I've fitted the spring and axlebox castings, the brake cross shaft, vacuum cylinder and linkage, lamp irons and vacuum pipe brackets.

These two photos show the brake levers in place on either side of the chassis, these are the last of the etchings to be fitted. I then did a trial fit of the wheels to make sure that they have the required vertical movement, which they didn't! When I checked the problem I realised that I hadn't taken enough metal off the rear of the axleboxes. I removed them and made sure I did the job properly this time. Serves me right. This is also a good time to check the fit of the chassis to the body. One thing to look out for here is that if the base of the lamp iron is sitting proud of the top of the headstock, it will prevent the body from sitting properly on the chassis. Its a safe assumption to infer what I had done! Again, easily rectified. I wouldn't mind, but its not the first time I've managed to do that on these chassis. They say you live and learn, but are they right?

All that now remains is to fit the buffers in place and then the paint job, join body and chassis and fit the couplings and those pipes.

I now have a favour to ask of anyone out there who may be familiar with these wagons.

Take a look at the lettering in the photo above. I'm modelling this wagon in its almost as-built state, circa 1962-3. The earliest photo I have of the prototype is dated 1969 and the vehicle in question is lettered as shown. It has nagged away at me that the positioning is not as it should be and that everything should be in the "standard" wagon lettering positions. Can anyone confirm this and create more work for me. To be honest, I don't like the way the transfer film shows up, so re-painting it won't be the end of the world, but I would like to get it all right, wouldn't I?

The latest set of pictures are very good and thanks also for your reply to my question re. the time taken on this build.

The elastic vac. pipe method of yours does seem worthwhile to me and I'm sure that it does add that little bit extra movement when the wagons are running. As a variation on the Jim Smith-Wright vac.pipe method with magnetic ends and for wagons in fixed rakes, I had wondered about having the magnets at the outer ends of a 'pair' of pipes, engaging with steel rods set on the under side of the headstocks of the wagons. I have done something similar for MU cables on EMU models.

Re. the carrier film on your wagon body. The recommended method to avoid this is to apply the transfers to a gloss varnish surface then apply more varnish. I do tend to stick to that method except that I prefer to remove the carrier film with white spirit prior to the final coat of varnish. For some one who has taken the time to build a wagon chassis in the way you have, I'm sure teasing off some carrier film would come as light relief!

Lord Colnago wrote:Take a look at the lettering in the photo above. I'm modelling this wagon in its almost as-built state, circa 1962-3. The earliest photo I have of the prototype is dated 1969 and the vehicle in question is lettered as shown. It has nagged away at me that the positioning is not as it should be and that everything should be in the "standard" wagon lettering positions. Can anyone confirm this and create more work for me. To be honest, I don't like the way the transfer film shows up, so re-painting it won't be the end of the world, but I would like to get it all right, wouldn't I?

I have an accurately panned but otherwise poor quality shot of one of these taken at Brent Knoll that might date from 1966, but no earlier. Its number is 784342 (surprisingly, without a 'B' prefix), and the tare has been painted in the conventional r/h bottom position, below the XP and wheelbase markings. I haven't come across any pictures showing the tare where you have positioned it other than those falling into your mid to late 70's period. For your earlier period, I think it likely the tare would have appeared in the r/h bottom position.

I do employ the method you suggest for applying transfers Colin. The only thing I can think of that has happened is that I must have applied too much matt varnish after putting down the transfers and some has collected under the edges and shows up as in the photo. Having used a setting solution as well, I can't see how the edges would be raised, but I can't think of any other cause.

Thanks for the info John. I have Mr. Bartlett's excellent site book-marked, as any good wagon enthusiast should. I think, in the absence of anything more definitive, that I'll re-letter this van and place everything in the conventional position for the period being modelled. That way, someone will come along with something to prove me wrong!

The Vanwides were built in 1962, the same year as BR started using 'boxed' number/data panels. Don Rowland's British Railway Wagons p66 has a lot 3391 wagon with unboxed numbers in 1969; David Larkin's BR Standard Freight Wagons has a lot 3392 vehicle with boxed numbers in 1968 on p29. Lot 3391 was built at Wolverton, 3392 at Derby, and these vans apparently spanned the change of style. The implication would seem to be that the unboxed version is 'as built' for the earlier wagons, as presumably any subsequent full repaint would have resulted in the use of boxed data panels. B782874 is actually the second vehicle, numerically, of lot 3391.

In both cases the number and load are on the LH door, probably so that they remained visible with the door open. The tare is shown with the number and load on the boxed version [standard practice for this style], but on the unboxed version is on the RHS. However, such details did sometimes appear in odd positions, but it is also possible that the position of the tare is a later change, particularly if the small box with maintenance, etc. dates has been applied where the tare had originally been. It seems to have been normal for this box to be applied without any other changes to the livery, except for a possible enforced move of the tare, the new position being somewhat random. [The wagon on BR Wagons p66 has not yet had that data box applied.]

Thanks for the info. A quick trawl of the internet hasn't thrown up any photos taken earlier than the ones you refer to, so I think I'll move the tare lettering to the right hand side, as you suggest, and leave everything else where it is. I'm interested in your comment regarding the introduction of boxed style lettering in 1962. Would that be the first type of two line box as opposed to the later, more common, three line type? You may be able to help with another matter. Do you know when the darker bauxite was introduced on freight stock?

My date of 1962 for the boxed lettering was derived from a photo caption in part 3 of Peter Fidczuk's article on 16T minerals in Modellers' Backtrack Vol 1 No 5 of 12/91-1/92. However, since my original response I've found several references in David Larkin's 'Wagons of the Middle BR Era' to "post-1964" livery when referring to vehicle with boxed numbers, etc. He so refers to both two line and three line boxes, whether in dashed or solid lines. "An Illustrated History of BR Wagons", of which David Larkin was one of the authors also refers to post-1964 livery, and also to post-1964 "Freight Brown" [?the darker bauxite?]. Having, I fear, created more confusion, I will retire to cover, grateful that I model a slightly earlier BR period, before all the 1960s changes...

There's a picture of an out of the box lot 3391 Vanwide on page 47 of 'Wagons of the final British Railways era' by David Larkin. The lettering is very similar to how you've done the model. The major difference is that the tare weight is under the wheelbase and the 12T is sited centrally above the number. Everything is slightly higher up also. Can't comment on colour as it's black and white and the wagon is on it's own.

I like the way that you've done the brake lever guards. I shall have to try that on my next chassis build. In truth there are several ways to approach building the things on my etches. What is in the instructions is what I thought best at the time. That doesn't mean it's the best way though!